Leo XIV contra the new Babel: Reflections on the pope’s landmark encyclical

Last week, Pope Leo XIV issued Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of his pontificate.  It has received much attention, both positive and negative and in both Catholic and secular media.  Much of the commentary so far strikes me as superficial.  To judge from social media, you’d think the document is primarily devoted to artificial intelligence, with some irrelevant comments about slavery and just war theory arbitrarily tacked on.  You’d also think those comments mark a rupture with traditional Catholic teaching.  None of this is true.  There is no break with traditional teaching.  While artificial intelligence (or AI) gets significant attention, the encyclical is actually devoted to a much larger theme, of which AI is only a part.  And the remarks on slavery and just war theory are not arbitrary, but fit in naturally with this larger theme.  Magnifica Humanitas is in fact a major contribution to the tradition of Catholic social teaching inaugurated by the pope’s namesake Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum.  It is rich in insights, and gives Catholics a sound framework for dealing with the “new things” of our times, just as Rerum Novarum did for Catholics of the late nineteenth century and beyond.

Catholic social teaching

As the encyclical itself makes clear, it cannot properly be understood apart from that larger magisterial context.  So let me begin with some remarks about that.  By the time of Leo XIII, the economic order of the Western world had been radically transformed by modern industry and capitalism.  This new order of things yielded certain benefits, such as unprecedented technological advances and more efficient modes of production.  It also generated certain problems, such as economic instability for the working class and the concentration of vast power in private hands.  These outcomes were in part a result of natural economic processes, but also largely a reflection of novel and contingent cultural conditions and legal structures.  How to preserve the advantages of this new order of things while remedying its downside was a matter of great controversy.  At one extreme were those favoring a laissez-faire policy, according to which whatever outcomes were generated by this system were optimal and ought not to be interfered with by political authorities.  At the other extreme were those who favored a socialist model on which economic planning and ownership of the basic means of production ought to be put in the hands of the state.

Leo XIII unambiguously condemned both of these extreme views, and set out the basic moral principles that ought to guide Catholics in constructing a sober middle ground position.  These included a vigorous defense of the institution of private property against its socialist critics, and an equally vigorous defense, against partisans of laissez-faire, of the thesis that a market wage is not necessarily a just wage.  Later popes made crucial further contributions, sometimes in light of major historical developments.  This was true of what are arguably the two greatest social encyclicals after Rerum Novarum, namely Pope Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno (issued during the Great Depression) and Pope St. John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus (which appeared as the Soviet Union was in the process of collapsing). 

The popes have consistently resisted taking any simplistic ideological position on the modern capitalist economic order, refusing either to denounce it wholesale or to judge all of its features to be acceptable or at any rate somehow natural and inevitable.  For example, Pius XI held, on the one hand, that “this system is not to be condemned in itself… surely it is not of its own nature vicious... [and it has] its advantages.”  But on the other hand, he noted that it has “disadvantages and vices” as well, and very grave ones at the time he was writing:

Not only is wealth concentrated in our times but an immense power and despotic economic dictatorship is consolidated in the hands of a few, who often are not owners but only the trustees and managing directors of invested funds which they administer according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure.  This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money.  Hence they regulate the flow, so to speak, of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will.  This concentration of power and might, the characteristic mark, as it were, of contemporary economic life, is the fruit that the unlimited freedom of struggle among competitors has of its own nature produced, and which lets only the strongest survive; and this is often the same as saying, those who fight the most violently, those who give least heed to their conscience.

Similarly, John Paul II insisted that the Church cannot treat the issue of whether to embrace capitalism as a simple Yes or No question:

Can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society?... The answer is obviously complex.  If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative… But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

The tradition of Catholic social teaching that the popes hammered out insists, against the excessive individualism that typically informs the theory and practice of capitalism, that man is a social animal.  It also insists – against the collectivism and excessive internationalism that typically inform socialism – that it is the family in which our social nature is most immediately manifest, and that nations and the patriotism they inspire are a natural and healthy extension of the group loyalties we first learn in the family.  We are neither atomized individuals nor mere cells in a single vast blob.  On the one hand, we need, and bear obligations to, social orders larger than ourselves – first and foremost to family, then to country, and then to the family of nations that comprises mankind as a whole.  These needs and obligations are enshrined in the principle of solidarity.  On the other hand, these larger social orders should interfere with the lower level orders that make them up only when strictly necessary in order to assist them in carrying out their own functions, and otherwise ought to leave them free to manage their own affairs.  This is the principle of subsidiarity.  (I discuss the principles of subsidiarity, solidarity, and the family and nation in more depth in this article from a few years ago.)

Naturally, there’s a lot more to Catholic social teaching, but those are some key principles, as are the aforementioned principles of private property and the just wage.  And they suffice to make it clear that the Church’s teaching cannot be classified as either “right-wing” or “left-wing,” as those terms are usually understood.  To be sure, some might suppose that the principles of subsidiarity and private property are “right-wing” aspects of the Church’s teaching.  But the Church doesn’t necessarily understand these principles the way that contemporary conservatives and libertarians would.  Others might suppose that the principles of solidarity and the just wage are “left-wing” aspects of Catholic teaching.  But the Church also doesn’t necessarily understand these principles the way that contemporary egalitarian liberals and socialists would.

In fact, it is a serious mistake to start with the usual modern political categories, and then try to understand Catholic social teaching in light of them.  Rather, a Catholic should start by understanding the Church’s social teaching on its own terms, and then evaluate various familiar political categories and positions in light of that teaching.  They will find that while contemporary politicians, political parties, and political philosophies often express ideas that in some respects sound like what the Church teaches, they often understand these ideas differently than the way the Church does.  And of course, they also often say other things that conflict with what the Church teaches.  In any event, the Church’s teaching is not some incoherent mish-mash of right-wing and left-wing elements.  It is a coherent whole, hammered out over centuries and with deep roots in classical philosophy and scripture.  It is contemporary right- and left-wing positions that are typically incoherent, since they take only certain aspects of the tradition and gravely distort them by neglecting other, balancing aspects in light of which the Church says they must be understood.

The new Babel

Now, what Pope Leo XIV is doing in Magnifica Humanitas is analogous to what Leo XIII did in Rerum Novarum.  He is addressing another major transformation of the economic structure of the modern world – namely the “Information Age” revolution brought about by computers, the internet, artificial intelligence, social media, smartphones, and the like.  Like the rise of modern industry and capitalism, this transformation has yielded both novel benefits and grave new problems.  As in that earlier revolution, the economic order to which “new things” have given rise is not vicious in itself, but its current character is also not something to which we need or should acquiesce as optimal or inevitable.  For like the earlier revolution, the current one is in part a result of contingent technological, cultural, legal, and political factors that are within our power to shape.  And it is the principles of Catholic social teaching that ought to guide us in shaping them.  That is the basic message of the pope’s encyclical.

Among the dangers of this new order, Leo cites: a narrow technocratic mentality that concentrates power in the hands of those with expertise in Information Age technologies, and is too quick to frame problems in a way susceptible of resolution through those technologies; an excessive emphasis on intelligence, which devalues ordinary labor and the majority of human beings who earn their livelihood through it; the elimination of jobs on which such people depend, often without avenues for retraining them; manipulation of the flow of information to serve private interests rather than the common good; the easy spread of false narratives, the prevalence of instant uninformed and emotional reactions to current events, and social media’s general tendency to discourage rational discourse; AI algorithms’ tendency to yield the illusion of objectivity while in fact reflecting the biases of their designers; the spread of pornography, the addictiveness of social media in general, and the way it molds the character of children in ways parents have too little control over; the manipulation made possible by the monitoring of people’s online purchases and viewing habits; and the exploitation of cheap labor in the maintenance of the material conditions of the whole system.

Above all, Leo warns of the ideology of transhumanism that informs the thinking of many of the leaders of this new economic order.  Human nature is taken to be malleable, and the distinction between human beings and mere machines is blurred.  Limitations are seen, not as natural concomitants of ordinary human life, but evils to be overcome.  Suffering is regarded as something to be eradicated entirely, rather than as an inevitable part of the human condition, the endurance of which perfects us morally and spiritually.  Salvation comes to be seen as something that might be achieved through human ingenuity rather than the grace of God. 

To the extent that these evils and the values they reflect dominate the new Information Age, the result, Pope Leo says, can be thought of as a new “Tower of Babel,” or what St. Augustine called the “City of Man” – a social order grounded in human pride and the libido dominandi of the powerful, rather than a city oriented to God and the common good of all human beings.  (The pope does not cite Paul Kingsnorth, but readers familiar with his work will see in Leo’s description of the new Babel a parallel to what Kingsnorth calls “the Machine.”)

By contrast, to inform the new economic order with the principles of Catholic social teaching is to commit to a project Pope Leo compares to Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem, and to what Augustine called the City of God.  It puts God rather than man at the center of the social order, and puts the common good ahead of the private interests of the powerful.  At the same time, it represents an authentic “transhumanism,” which, says Leo, has already been offered by Christianity.  This true transhumanism remedies our limitations and raises us up to something higher, but by grace rather than by our own efforts.  At the same time, it recognizes, respects, and builds on human nature rather than erasing it.  It is modeled by Christ, who embraced the suffering and limitations of the human condition and redeemed them.

Some critics have complained that the pope does not offer a defense of the claims he makes about artificial intelligence, as when he writes:

So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean.  Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.  They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom.  Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. (99)

But again, the encyclical is not about artificial intelligence alone, but rather about the broader Information Age economic and social order of which AI is a part.  Furthermore, its aim is not to rehearse the arguments Catholic and other thinkers would give against the claim that AI programs are genuinely intelligent.  There is already a large literature on those arguments.  (See my book Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature for a detailed critique of the thesis that AI amounts to genuine intelligence.)  The pope’s point is rather to make clear how those who agree with this assessment of AI ought to approach the broader social and economic questions it raises.  Just as Leo XIII set out general moral principles to guide the reform of the economic order of the late nineteenth century – but without pretending to address all the various specific technical economic questions such reform raises – so too is Leo XIV setting out general moral principles to guide the reform of the economic order of the Information Age, without pretending to address all the technical specifics.

Babel at war

It is in light of these main themes of Magnifica Humanitas that we have to understand what it says about issues that may at first seem unconnected, such as war and slavery.  As to war, let’s look first at the pope’s most controversial remark, and then come back to the question of why the topic is dealt with in the encyclical at all.  Leo states that “the ‘just war’ theory… is now outdated” (192).  Some have read this as an expression of pacifism, which is contrary to the teaching of the Catechism, and of tradition, that war can be justifiable when fought for ends such as self-defense. 

But that is clearly not what the pope means.  The encyclical goes on to speak of “the principle that armed force should be used only as a last resort in cases of legitimate self-defense” (197).  It notes that “the Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the possibility of legitimate defense by means of military force, which involves demonstrating that certain ‘rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy’ have been met” (footnote 182).  And the complete sentence in which the pope’s controversial words appear reads: “Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated” (192).

So, the pope explicitly acknowledges that military action can be justified when carried out in self-defense if it meets certain conditions, such as being a last resort.  And that is the paradigm case of military action that meets the criteria of just war theory.  Indeed, the Catechism itself, which the pope cites, speaks of such “legitimate defense by military force” as an application of “the ‘just war’ doctrine” (2309).  Hence, the pope’s own words logically entail that he is reaffirming what the Catechism refers to by that label, whether or not he uses that label himself.  The substance of what he says is perfectly consistent with the Catechism.

So why does the pope speak of just war theory as “out of date”?  His meaning is clear from the larger context.  Pope Leo notes that “it is easy to fall into an overly broad interpretation of this potential right [of self-defense].  In this way, some would also wrongly justify even ‘preventive’ attacks or acts of war that can hardly avoid entailing evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated” (footnote 182).  If one were to accept such a loose interpretation of just war criteria, it would follow that “in recent decades, every single war has been ostensibly ‘justified’” (ibid.), which would be absurd.  Such loose interpretations have become so commonplace that we are now seeing a “revival of war as an instrument of international politics” (190), indeed its “normalization” as “as a natural extension of politics” (193). 

Obviously, what the pope has in mind are glib applications of traditional just war criteria, such as the assumption that as long as one can identify some good aim for which military action might be taken, then the “just cause” condition has been met.  As I explained in an earlier article, that is not how the just cause condition works.  It is not sufficient to have an aim that is morally good in the abstract.  It must be morally good all things considered and given the actual concrete circumstances under which the war would be fought.  For example, suppose some war is fought in the name of liberating a people from an unjust government.  Considered just by itself, that aim can be just.  But suppose that, given the actual concrete circumstances, such a war would be highly likely to result in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, a civil war that could leave the country in chaos for a generation, a catastrophic refugee crisis, and so on.  Then the war would not be justifiable, because it would yield evils even worse than those the war was supposed to be remedying.

Pope Leo’s chief concern appears to be the “disastrous consequences for civilian populations” of wars fought in the name of ostensibly good causes (192).  He brings the issue up repeatedly in Magnifica Humanitas.  For example, he notes that “the past sixty years have been marked by conflicts of astonishing brutality, often affecting civilian populations on a massive scale, leading to the death of innocent victims, mass displacement, social destabilization and long-lasting wounds” (189).  He laments that “the principle of proportionality in responding to aggression, the protection of access to water, food and essential goods, and respect for the lives of civilians, especially children, [have] come to be regarded as naïve relics of the past” (203).  He insists on a “non-negotiable requirement... [to] ensure robust protection for civilians and the infrastructures necessary for their survival” (200).  He states that “when we witness the bombing of civilians, attacks on hospitals, schools or vital infrastructure, and violence that affects children, we are confronted with scandals that wound humanity itself.  For this reason, we cannot limit ourselves to the level of abstract analysis” (216).

It is clear, then, that what the pope considers “outdated” is not the principles of just war doctrine themselves, but rather any application of those principles that would permit military action for purposes other than defense in the strictest sense – and in particular, any application of them that “normalizes” war as one “instrument of international politics” alongside the others.  And the reason has to do with the imperative to protect civilian populations from the brutal side effects of war.

This is not a novel position, and indeed is not a “liberal” position either.  On the contrary, it reflects a point of view that became increasingly common among even the most traditionalist voices within the Church beginning in the middle of the twentieth century.  In in his 1948 Christmas message, Pope Pius XII stated that “the theory of war as an apt and proportionate means of solving international conflicts is now out of date.”  While no pacifist, Pius also held that resorting to military action even in self-defense could be justified only if it would not give rise to even greater evils than those being remedied.  In an address of October 19, 1953, he stated: “The fact that one has to defend oneself against injustice of some sort is not enough to justify using the violent methods of war.  When the harm caused by the latter are out of proportion to the harm caused by the injustice, one may have a duty to submit to that injustice” (quoted in Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, p. 450).

Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, who became a hero to traditionalists for his resistance to liberal doctrinal reforms during the era of Vatican II, argued in 1949 that given the grave risks posed to civilian populations:

Modern wars can never fulfil those conditions which… govern – theoretically – a just and lawful war.  Moreover, no conceivable cause could ever be sufficient justification for the evils, the slaughter, the destruction, the moral and religious upheavals which war today entails.  In practice, then, a declaration of war will never be justifiable.  A defensive war even should never be undertaken unless a legitimate authority, with whom the decision rests, shall have both certainty of success and very solid proofs that the good accruing to the nation from the war will more than outweigh the untold evils which it will bring on the nation itself, and on the world in general.

The eminent Catholic traditionalist philosopher Romano Amerio, while sharply criticizing liberal tendencies in the Church on topics such as eternal damnation, capital punishment, and the like, argued in his classic 1985 book Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century that it would be a mistake to see the move toward a more restrictive interpretation of just war criteria as part of this liberalizing trend.  On the contrary, “the change that has occurred in the understanding of war is in fact a coherent development” (p. 441).  It simply reflects the Christian imperative to protect the innocent, whose lives are too often lost in enormous numbers in modern wars even when they are not directly targeted.

In line with this development, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – who later became Pope Benedict XVI and famously defended a “hermeneutic of continuity” with the Church’s traditional teaching – stated in 2003 that “given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war’.”  Pope Leo’s remarks on the subject simply reflect this longstanding development in orthodox Catholic moral theology.  Whatever one thinks of his teaching, he is not saying anything new, or liberal, or heterodox.

But why does Pope Leo raise this issue in Magnifica Humanitas in the first place?  In part because the new technological revolution is affecting the way war is waged and justified today.  For example, a danger of AI-based weapons systems is that they can remove immediate decision-making from human control.  But the killing of human beings, even in war, is too momentous a matter to be left to machines.  Only human beings, guided by the relevant moral principles, should ever make such decisions.  The pope also warns of the tendency of social media algorithms to promote conflict, snap judgments, false narratives, and emotional reactions that harden people into Manichean patterns of thinking.  These can in turn be exploited by governments in order to rationalize war and sell it to the public.

The deeper issue, though, appears to be that treating war as if it were simply another means by which political interests may be advanced is yet another example of the technocratic mentality of the new Babel, which subordinates moral considerations to the pragmatic judgments of experts.  Pope Leo notes that, since the end of the Cold War, two competing mentalities have informed leaders in the international arena: on the one hand a globalism whose approach is “predominantly economic” and exhibits an “almost blind faith” in markets, yielding too thin a basis for stable international order; and on the other hand an “identity-based and nationalistic” reaction to this globalism, committed to an “us or them” and “might makes right” jingoism (201-202).  But this is a false choice, and peace between nations requires rejecting both views.  Here too the pope is simply following longstanding Catholic thinking.  As I have discussed elsewhere (briefly here and at greater length here), the Catholic tradition affirms (against globalism) that nations and special attachment to one’s own nation are natural and salutary aspects of the human condition, but also (against jingoism) that the relationship between nations ought to be one of solidarity and cooperation rather than zero-sum competition and domination.

Slavery in Babel

The topic of slavery might at first seem tangential or even irrelevant in an encyclical devoted to the new economy of the Information Age.  But once you read the paragraph in which Leo introduces it, its relevance is obvious:

This distorted view of the human person is reflected today in various forms of servitude directly linked to the digital economy.  Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical.  Every seemingly immediate and flawless response is the result of a long chain of mediation, involving vast networks of natural resources, energy infrastructure and, above all, people.  A significant part of the digital economy’s functioning relies on the silent work of millions of people engaged in essential yet largely unseen activities, such as data labeling, model training and content moderation, often involving disturbing material.  In many cases, these workers are young people, predominantly women, working under demanding conditions for minimal wages.  Added to this invisible labor is the even harsher work of extracting the resources required for the production of the devices and microprocessors on which AI depends.  In some regions of the world, children and adolescents work in dangerous conditions, crushing the materials from which rare earth elements are extracted.  The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly.  Furthermore, criminal networks use online platforms, messaging systems, anonymous payment methods and profiling techniques in order to recruit, control and transport victims of trafficking – very often minors – reducing men and women to “data” to be tracked and “packages” to be moved around within the same digital circuits that support much of the global economy. (173)

Some would point out that not all of these practices amount to what most people think of when they hear the word “slavery” – namely, chattel slavery, in which a person claims complete property rights in another human being, the way one might own an animal or an inanimate object.  But part of Leo’s point is precisely that there are many practices that are so gravely exploitative that they amount to slavery, and that all slavery is bad and to be opposed even if not bad in the specific ways chattel slavery is. 

This is not some new teaching.  On the contrary, it has long been the standard view in Catholic moral theology.  Indeed, that chattel slavery is intrinsically and gravely evil has been taught by the popes for five centuries, going back to the beginnings of the modern slave trade.  I document this in chapter 2 of my book All One in Christ, and one can find a detailed treatment in Joel Panzer’s The Popes and Slavery. 

Now, moral theologians traditionally have distinguished chattel slavery from practices that are in theory less extreme, such as penal servitude and indentured servitude.  In penal servitude, a person is forced to serve another in punishment for some crime.  The idea is that the person being punished in this way is not analogous to an animal or inanimate object.  Not just any old thing can be done to him or required of him, but only what is proportionate to his crime.  In indentured servitude, a person is forced to serve another in payment of a debt.  The idea is that the servant in this case too is not analogous to an animal or inanimate object.  Here too, not just any old thing can be done to him or demanded of him, but only what is relevant to the debt he owes.  Penal servitude and indentured servitude are different from chattel slavery, then, insofar as the servant is not a piece of property that may be used in just any old way the master wants.  These practices were seen as analogous to imprisonment, or to fines in punishment of a crime.  The idea is that if you can imprison someone for a crime or force him to pay back a debt owed, then you can by extension make him work as a servant as a way of being punished or of paying his debt.

The trouble is that even if in theory these practices are different from chattel slavery, in practice penal servitude and indentured servitude tend to degenerate into something little different from chattel slavery.  Servants end up being treated the way animals and inanimate objects would be, and masters end up cruel and exploitative.  Cases of outright chattel slavery would also be rationalized by stretching to find ways to interpret them as a kind of penal or indentured servitude.  Hence the consensus that developed in Catholic moral theology is that penal and indentured servitude are simply too gravely morally hazardous ever to be licit in practice.  Better flatly to reject all forms of servitude as incompatible with justice and charity.

However, this consensus on penal servitude and indentured servitude took a much longer time to develop than the consensus on the evil of chattel slavery.  Again, popes have for centuries condemned chattel slavery.  Accordingly, even centuries ago, they were already condemning the mistreatment of American Indians, and the African slave trade.  That is by no means some recent development.  However, at the same time, popes would sometimes still allow for servitude of the other kinds mentioned.  For example, in his 1452 bull Dum Diversas, Pope Nicholas V allowed for the forced servitude of enemies defeated in a just war, as a kind of penal servitude.  And an 1866 Instruction from the Holy Office under Pope Pius IX allowed certain kinds of penal and indentured servitude.  (See Panzer’s book for a useful detailed discussion of the Instruction.)  That servitude of all kinds ought flatly to be ruled out is something that becomes clear in magisterial teaching only beginning with Pope Leo XIII in the late nineteenth century.

This context is crucial for understanding Leo XIV’s remarks in Magnifica Humanitas.  The pope writes:

It was only in the nineteenth century that a formal, absolute and universal condemnation of slavery was clearly articulated, notably under Pope Leo XIII.  This development offers a clear example of the Church’s growth in understanding the perennial truths of Revelation that she safeguards.  Although there was not always consistency in practice – given that slavery was long tolerated before being unequivocally condemned – there has been a continuous affirmation throughout history of the dignity of every human being, created in the image of God, even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized.  This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached.  It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord.  For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon. (176)

Some have objected to this passage, on the grounds that it concedes too much to the critics of the Church by ignoring the centuries of papal condemnations of chattel slavery.  There is some justice to this objection.  It would have been better for Pope Leo to call attention to the fact that predecessors such as popes Eugene IV in the fifteenth century, Paul III and Gregory XIV in the sixteenth century, Urban VIII and Innocent XI in the seventeenth century, Benedict XIV in the eighteenth century, and Gregory XVI in the early nineteenth century, condemned chattel slavery.  The Church’s record on this issue is much better than most readers of the new encyclical are likely to realize from what it says.

However, in fairness to Pope Leo, his point is that the Magisterium’s peremptory condemnation of all of the morally indefensible forms of servitude begins with Leo XIII, and that this constitutes a legitimate and salutary development of what was always implicit in the basic moral premises of the Catholic faith.  And that is true.  (Footnotes 174 and 175 cite Dum Diversas and the 1866 Instruction as among the documents that failed to live up to what was implicit in these premises.)  And clearly, the reason the pope wants to emphasize that all of these forms of servitude are to be condemned is that he wants Catholics and all people of good will to see the urgency of dealing with the forms of exploitation that characterize the digital economy, described in the passage quoted above.

Liberalism?

Too many conservatives have a knee-jerk tendency to think of Pope Leo on the model of Pope Francis, and to attribute theologically and politically liberal positions to him.  This is largely a consequence of misunderstandings of the kind already addressed above.  What Leo says about the principle of solidarity and about the ethics of war, for example, has nothing to do with liberalism of either a political or theological sort.  He is simply reiterating longstanding and orthodox Catholic teaching.

These knee-jerk reactions also ignore important differences between Leo and Francis.  As I have noted in previous writings, Pope Leo has shown greater nuance than his predecessor on topics such as immigration enforcement and the death penalty.  He has moved the Church away from Francis’s policy on blessings for same-sex couples.  And there are aspects of Magnifica Humanitas that reflect further subtle but important differences between the pope and his predecessor.

Consider the encyclical’s treatment of the Declaration Dignitas Infinita, issued by the DDF under Pope Francis.  As I argued at the time of its release, the Declaration is seriously problematic, not least in its attribution to human beings of an “infinite dignity” – something that, strictly speaking, only God can be said to have.  Magnifica Humanitas cites Dignitas Infinita approvingly.  But interestingly, it proposes an innocuous reading of the problematic phrase:

The dignity of every human being can be described as infinite… for two reasons: first, because the love of God, who calls us to friendship with him, is infinite; and second, his love is absolutely unconditional, in the sense that, even if we search endlessly, we will never find anything that can erase or deny it. (53)

Certainly God’s love is infinite, and it is also unconditional insofar as there is a sense in which even those in Hell are still loved by God.  So, if what it means for human dignity to be infinite is simply that God’s love for us is infinite and unconditional, then that is an orthodox position (even if, in my opinion, the phrase is still extremely misleading and should be avoided).

There is another respect in which Magnifica Humanitas arguably corrects Dignitas Infinita.  Consider what Pope Leo says about the right to life:

Human rights are inviolable, since they are “inherent in the human person and in human dignity.”  Consequently, they are universal and inalienable.  Precisely because they are grounded in the common dignity of every man and woman, they have practical consequences and legal effects, for “it would be vain to proclaim human rights if, at the same time, everything were not done to ensure the duty of respecting them, respect by all, in all places and for all.”  Among these rights, the first is the right to life, from conception to its natural end, without which it is impossible to exercise any other right.  When this fundamental right is denied – as in the cases of induced abortion, killing of the innocent and euthanasia – we are faced with choices that the Church considers gravely wrong.  (55)

Dignitas Infinita had made the radical move of lumping the death penalty in with abortion, euthanasia, and the like as a comparable affront to human dignity, inherently and in all circumstances.  As I noted in the article linked to above, this is contrary to the traditional teaching of the Church.  But though Pope Leo has made it clear in other contexts that he is opposed to the death penalty, he does not make the mistake of treating it as on a par with these other practices.  Indeed, he does not mention it in the encyclical at all, and in this passage dealing with the right to life, he explicitly refers to the “killing of the innocent” as what is universally wrong and contrary to human dignity.  This is another improvement over Francis.

There is another aspect of Magnifica Humanitas that conservatives ought to appreciate, and that is its treatment of the principle of subsidiarity.  Churchmen today often have a lot to say about the principle of solidarity, and rightly so.  It is absolutely fundamental to Catholic social teaching, and in my opinion too many conservatives fail to appreciate its significance (due to the influence on them of libertarianism and a doctrinaire brand of free market economics). 

However, the same churchmen often fail to pay sufficient attention to the principle of subsidiarity, which balances the principle of solidarity.  They give it at most a passing nod but then mostly ignore it when making concrete policy recommendations.  Conservatives complain about this, and they are right to do so.  But Pope Leo does not make that mistake.  Leo states that Pope Pius XI’s emphasis on subsidiarity is among the aspects of his teaching that “remain particularly relevant today” (31).  He elaborates as follows:

If every woman and man is called to take ownership of his or her own life and to contribute to the formation of society, then social institutions must also respect and support this responsibility.  The Social Doctrine of the Church refers to subsidiarity as the principle according to which the role of individuals, families, local communities and intermediary organizations should not be supplanted by higher-level authorities.  Moreover, higher-level institutions must recognize, protect and promote the freedom and creativity of lower-level entities, coordinating their contributions so that they can cooperate effectively for the common good.  Starting with Leo XIII and the beginnings of modern social teaching, the Church has insisted that neither the individual nor the family should be subsumed by the State, but should be allowed to act freely, as far as possible, without harming the common good...  This principle encourages us to move beyond any form of paternalistic or welfare-based management of societal life.  (68-70)

Similarly, the pope notes that “financial assistance to the poor may at times be necessary in emergencies, but it cannot become the sole response, since the goal is to enable each person to live with dignity through his or her own work” (149).  Leo insists that the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity must balance each other: “When subsidiarity is not linked to solidarity, it ends up becoming merely the protection of particular interests; when solidarity is not supported by subsidiarity, it degenerates into a form of welfare that does not foster responsibility” (73).

Magnifica Humanitas is not perfect.  It is a bit verbose, sometimes speaks in terms that are too vague, and in some cases (as in the remarks on just war theory) says things that could have been formulated with a little more theological precision.  All the same, it is a landmark encyclical which repays study, and offers us sound guidance in dealing with the “new things” of our day, as Leo XIII showed the way to the Church and the world in his time.